Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Yesterday I sold all of my HF radios. At this moment, I have zero radios capable of transmitting below 2 meters.

It started off because of an advertisement in QST, and then a visit to AC9S to see his Flex 6700. I became obsessed with SDR, reading everything I could and watching youtube videos of hams around the world. I had to have a panadapter...wait, I need 4 panadapters!

I settled down a bit and got busy with other hobbies for a couple of weeks. A few contacts on PSK31 and CW, and I was back to being hot and heavy on a new radio - and one with all the whiz bang features. So on Friday I emailed Flex Radio with a list of my current HF rigs. Matt got back with me Monday morning with a quote for trading them in that wasn't too far off the used market value. Well rats...time to get serious or drop this fantasy.

A little back and forth, and then a search of the online swapmeets led me to list my radios for sale online Monday night. By Tuesday morning they all were sold! Yikes! I ended up getting 25% more than the trade-in offer by selling myself, even when I took shipping and PayPal fees into account. So Tuesday afternoon while at the gym I took a break and called up Matt at Flex. I placed my order, and a new rig will be headed my way in the coming days. My old radios went out by UPS this afternoon. I'm currently a VHF/UHF only ham!

I'm hearing of hams that are giving up on HF, or even ham radio entirely due to the band conditions. Not me...I'm doubling down on this hobby by consolidating my HF capabilities into a Flex. I'll let you know how that works out!